Tag: Travel Posts

I’ve been working on a travel eBook for a few months now, mostly on airplanes and during the odd evening. It’s been slow going since I have a lot of other things going on right now, but I’ve managed to make a bit of progress each week. I’m pleased to announce that last night I managed to put the finishing touches on it, and it’s now officially available. My travel ebook contains two main topics: how you can make and execute plans for long-term travel (anything more than a week or two), and how you can redesign your life to make traveling easier. There are lots of great resources include, such as the top travel services I use on the internet, where the best places to find cheap travel insurance are, and some of the best motivation and business books I’ve read during my travels. The book is now available […]

The following is an excerpt from my FREE Travel Book. If you’re like to learn more travel tips like these, sign-up to receive my travel book as soon as it is released. Every time I tell my mom about some of the places I’ve recently visited, she seems to reach as though I just barely escaped being killed or taking hostage due to all negative media that certain parts of the world get on the local news. The truth is though that in much of the world it’s just as safe as it is in your part of the world. But crime does happen from time to time, and many criminals purposefully target tourists. In almost all cases the type of crime is simply petty theft – stealing a camera that was left on a table while someone went to the bathroom, or lifting a wallet out of someone’s back […]

Many people don’t realize that if they are in another country that they will often have to pay for all their medical expenses out of their own pocket. A simple visit to a doctor’s office probably won’t set you back too far in most countries, but being hospitalized can potentially bankrupt a person in certain parts of the world, such as the United States. I had a friend who got into a scooter accident in Thailand years ago, and only avoided hefty medical bills thanks to the travel health insurance he purchased before leaving Canada. So without a doubt one of the first items that should be on everyone’s to-do list for an upcoming trip is to either insure that you have adequate travel health insurance for your trip, or purchase travel insurance before leaving. Check For Pre-existing Coverage If you have a higher end credit card, often one that […]

Rebecca Bollwitt is one of those rare people who doesn’t need an introduction. Her Vancouver blog, Miss604.com, is well known in Canada and parts of the United States, and has been voted the #1 Vancouver blog for the last four years. Rebecca has organized several conferences in the Vancouver area, including two WordCamps, several Twestivals, and several blog-until-you-pass-out 24-hour sessions of Blogathons. Not only is Rebecca actively involved with Vancouver and her website, but her and her husband also co-founded a WordPress-centric design and development company called Sixty4Media. She even co-authored a business book that contains some powerful business, blogging and WordPress tips: Blogging To Drive Business. And like me, Rebecca can perform both of her jobs while travelling, something I find more and more people are adjusting their lives to accommodate. Rebecca also does a great deal of travel, both personal and sponsored trips, all the while writing for […]

While I’ve tried off and on to make a little money from my website over the years, it’s never been something that was really important to me, primarily because I have another full time job that makes me more than enough money. Another reason is that I personally am not a huge fan of most advertising, as I find a lot of it to be intrusive. That said, travelling around the world and writing about it isn’t cheap. I likely spend anywhere from $6,000 a year or so on plane tickets, and lots of other money on tourist attractions, subway tickets, bus rides, and of course restaurants and pubs. Some of those expenses would exist if I were back home as well, but some of them are exclusive to travelling. I know a few travel bloggers who manage to get sponsored trips to various places and as a result have […]

After three years of travelling solo and about ten or so of travelling with various businesses, I’ve become pretty used to booking accommodation online. Hotwire Hotels, Hotels.com, Priceline, HostelWorld – I’ve done them all. While each of those services listed above has advantages and disadvantages, one service I always go back to faithfully is Hotwire Hotels. If you’ve never used Hotwire, their business model will probably come as a surprise to you. Essentially they offer you extremely discounted hotel rooms in most major cities in the world, which is a great way to save some money if you are comfortable booking online. But there’s a catch – you don’t know exactly what hotel you are staying at until after you have already paid for it. That’s a scary proposition for most people, but is ultimately how they are able to keep their prices so low. You can mitigate this risk […]

After traveling the world for almost 2.5 years, I’ve become pretty knowledgable, mostly through trial and error, about which technology is useful to bring along during a trip and which should simply stay at home. It’s not always obvious, as evidenced by about 2 pounds worth of technology currently in my suitcase which I haven’t made use of in a long time. But one item that I’ve found practically indispensable is a portable external hard drive, especially since many of the new laptops (such as my Macbook Air) have a limited amount of built-in SSD storage. The best external hard drive for travel or whenever you are on the go, in my opinion, is the WD My Passport series of drives, as they are dependable and affordable compared to other drives with a similar capacity. I also find that they are quite light, which is really nice when you find […]

One of the hardest parts of traveling to remote countries is that it is not always easy to find some of the foods you enjoy the most back home. That in itself presents a great opportunity for exploring new foods, but let’s face it: sometimes it’s nice to have some tried and true comfort food. A good example of that for me is mexican food. It’s probably my favourite cuisine, and it was pretty rare that we didn’t have tacos at least weekly in my household growing up. Unfortunately in many parts of the world I’ve been in, finding mexican salsa can be a real pain. Even if you can find it (like here in Brazil), it’s an imported item that can easily cost $10 for a small container’s worth. Thankfully making fresh salsa at home is a pretty easy task, and one that I’ve performed a few times over […]

Not long ago I posted a few of my thoughts with regards to obtaining good travel health insurance for a year long trip. I wanted to clarify a few issues with regards to Canadian travel health insurance. British Columbia’s MSP actually is only valid if a person is in the province for more than six months in any given calendar year. If a person is planning on being gone longer, then insurance should be reapplied for upon coming back. Outside of that, a person can make use of a two year exception to the rule once every five years, which is the route I took. But you can only go that route once in a period of ten years, so it’s not very helpful. If you’re going to get travel insurance in Canada at a local insurance broker, chances are it will only be supplemental insurance, which means you have […]

I’ve been a ‘world traveler’ for almost two and a half years now. Back then I hadn’t really been away from Canada for very long before, and the thought of spending multiple weeks, let alone multiple months, in a foreign country was a pretty strange idea. Now the idea of loading a backpack up and heading to a new country feels about as foreign to me as doing a load of laundry. If I saw a plane ticket somewhere for a good price, I could probably be at the airport in three hours, ready to go on a new adventure. One of the pains of being away for an extended period of time though is figuring out how to accomplish many of the things you normally do at home (such as paying bills) while away. It’s not as easy as it sounds, and there are lots of different tricks I […]